


Untitled (Sam & Jess).

by amorremanet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: hc_bingo, F/M, Ficlet, Moral Ambiguity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:22:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So, that's <em>really</em> why you never talk about your family, isn't it?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled (Sam & Jess).

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically the rough draft of part of something longer, but it was written for, and I wanted to get it counted for, the, "serial killers" prompt at hc_bingo.

It's mid-afternoon before Sam and Jess get back from Tassajara, and for all they're supposed to go right to the hospital, Sam ducks into an In-N-Out first. Picks up his Protein Style with extra cheese and no spread, and Jess's single with extra cheese and no pickles because, as he puts it, he loves his brothers, but he's starving—"And I can't handle talking to them on an empty stomach, Jess. I just can't. It's not happening."

Jess can't begrudge him that, even though she mostly picks at her own sandwich, at her fries. They didn't get breakfast this morning from going after the banshee, from tracking down its hutch in a local cemetery and going after it with kitchen salt and kerosene. And she still can't believe what she's seen—her jacket smells like smoke and salt and it still feels like somebody else's bad dream. The thing… It had wrinkled, cadaverous grey skin, pulled tight over its skull, flaming red eyes, a tangled mess of hair with knots and twigs and leaves all sticking out from different angles. It groaned like a death rattle when Jess hit it in the side with the fireplace poker. It screeched, and howled, and writhed around when Sam set its hutch on fire. When Sam killed it.

That's what they did today, and the thought of it sours Jessica's appetite completely. Maybe it had killed other people—maybe it was a monster and it would've kept killing if they hadn't stopped it—but they still killed something sentient. Something that had thoughts and felt pain. And Sam doesn't even notice anything amiss about this at all—not until he glances over from the driver's seat of Jess's little Honda and furrows his brow at her, asks if she's okay or… well, it looks like she's pretty not okay, so instead of that question, what's up?

Jess sighs, combs her cleaner hand back through her hair. "So, that's _really_ why you never talk about your family, isn't it?" she says, and hopes to God that the answer to that is a resounding yes. "You never talk about them because that's what they do? And that's what _you_ used to do? You kill things—things that look like people, that can, like. Walk around and have thoughts, not just instincts or whatever animals have. You guys hunt those things down and you kill them? Just like we did tonight? And you used to do that all the time? Just like we did now?"

There are so many things that she's not asking here—so many things that, if she felt braver and more sure about the whole situation, she could ask instead. She could ask Sam if he thinks of his father and brothers as serial killers. She could ask him how long he was a hunter before he quit and came to Stanford. She could ask him if he's ever felt guilty or if it hasn't really occurred to him that he needed to do so, if he's never even thought of the beings his family kills as people when even that banshee looked close enough to human that it rattled Jess's cage. But all she has it in her to ask is the same thing she's asked already:

"That's why _really_ you never talk about your family, isn't it?"

Sam gives her a long, sad look like she's poking a bear that she couldn't possibly understand, not yet, not without so much more exposure to this world. "Yeah," he says and shakes his hair out of his eyes. "This is pretty much why I never talk about my family."


End file.
